James, welcome to the forum! Hope you don't mind but I just moved your post to this board where hopefully you'll get more response.

Morbier is an interesting cheese, never tried it but heard that very aromatic. I don't have a recipe but the first link below has two sets of Morbier Cheese Making Pictures (~21) on the Production webpage, if you click on a picture it gives you the text for that step. Hopefully that's a good start to a recipe:

Procedures:Warm milk to 90°F, stir gently and turn off heat.Add culture, cover and ripen for 1 hour - maintaining 90°F temperature.Dilute and add calcium cloride.Dilute and add rennet - cover and let sit for 40 minutes - maintaining 90°F temperature.Check for clean break. Once achieved cut curds to 1/2 inch and heal for 5 minutes.Slowly raise heat of curds to 100°F over 20 minutes.Remove half of the whey and replace with equal amount of 100°F water. Stir gentley for 10 minnutes.Divid curds equally between two cloth line coolarders and drain. Let curds mat for 10 minutes shaping chhese in one flat round.Place one piece in a cheesecloth lined mold and sprinkle liberally with ash.Place second round on top pulling cheese cloth up and folding over the top.Press at light to medium pressure for 1 hour.Remove cheese from press and redress cheesecloth. Press again using at light to medium pressure for 8 to 12 hours or overnight.Remove from press, remove chesecloth and place in 18% brine for 8 hours turning every 4 hours.Remove from brine and dry on rack at room temperature for 24 hours turning once.Place cheese on mat in ripening container.Ripen at 55°F and humidity of 90% for 1 week, turning daily. Wipe initial moisture from bottom of container with paper towel.Bacterial Brine: boil 1/2 cup water. Let cool. Add 1 teasppon salt and a tiny pinch of B. linens. Dover and set aside for 12 hours at room temperature to rehydrate bacteria..Dip small cloth in brine, sqeezing out excess and wash cheese all over. Returen cheese to ripening area.Ripen for 2 months turning and washing every second day with cloth dipped in brine. The rind will eventualyy form becoming brownish-gray.

Welcome to the forum James, great choice on cheese. Start slow, perfect you craft with one type before you move on. In doing so you will more quickly understand what is going on during the process. Good luck!

Welcome all new Morbier afficionados! I love this cheese! The key, I have found, is to wash the rind every other day in a mixture of b. linens and salt. Also, let the cheese breathe outside of the cave often, to allow the b.linens to grow. Good luck!

Haven't been on the forum for awhile--but just happen to have a morbier aging right now--it is definitely a washed-rind cheese that is aged 2-4 months. I vac-packed one and aged for 8 months and it took on a much different character--believe I like it more in the 3 month aging period as it is much softer of a paste.

Excellent. I was under the impression it was 6+ months maturing.We made some mini morbiers on the weekend, but due to their pressing they are quite flat, so probably won't need as long to age anyway.We did manage to get ash everywhere though! Find it hard to be "neat and tidy" with the ash layer!

I cant wait to try a Morbier hopefully tomorrow. I bought some carbon ash ages ago which was very course. I found it this morning and ground it up beautifully in my coffee grinder.In my little factory we used to ash cheeses every week and the easiest way to do it is put a teaspoon of ash in a small tea sieve, hold it over the container you have the ash in, have a practice tap to get used to the flow then tap gently over the cheese. The easiest way to clean up the ash is with a wet paper towel.

Has anyone made morbier in the traditional way.... making two different batches of curd from different milkings?

I wonder how this way of doing it affects the outcome... do the bottom and top sides develop differently, or does aging even out the differences in the makes / timing?

Wasn't the original idea that the curds are protected by the ashes until the rest of the curds are added? How should the curds+ashes be kept in the meantime? Temp, etc? Doesn't the bottom side acidify more and more while waiting for the rest? Also, the bottom part drains more, right?

I'm quite sure that what I can buy in the stores as morbier, is really made in one batch nowwadays.

My first attempt at Morbier was a disaster so the chooks enjoyed that (and the dog walked around with it in it's mouth for a few hours) but I was determined to try again. I am so glad I did, 2 months later and I have just cut into one of the nicest washed rind cheeses.The rind didn't really firm up because I am ripening in a red décor container and I didn't get to air dry it much. The recipe came from this thread and the 200 easy cheese recipes book.

Has anyone made morbier in the traditional way.... making two different batches of curd from different milkings?

I wonder how this way of doing it affects the outcome... do the bottom and top sides develop differently, or does aging even out the differences in the makes / timing?

Wasn't the original idea that the curds are protected by the ashes until the rest of the curds are added? How should the curds+ashes be kept in the meantime? Temp, etc? Doesn't the bottom side acidify more and more while waiting for the rest? Also, the bottom part drains more, right?

I'm quite sure that what I can buy in the stores as morbier, is really made in one batch nowwadays.

I made a morbier version once using the recipe from Mary Karlin's book. We keep goats. So I used 2 gallons of raw goat from the milking the day before to make one set of curd, and 1 gallon raw goat milk from the morning milking combined with 3 pts. P/H cows milk in another pot simultaneously. I separated the two layers with ash. The difference was perceptible, but subtle.

Not traditional, but I did it because my tomme mold works best with 3+ gallon makes. She also suggest doing one layer raw and one layer pasteurized. That would be interesting too.

It was good., I'll make it again. I'll use a stronger b.l. Wash and more air circulation though. The rind was slow to develop on my first make.